Rachel Kornak

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  • Hey
  • RESUME
  • Buzz
  • Teach
  • Promote
  • Serve
  • Reflect
  • Grow
  • Tech Tools

 

Mini-Book Review - Speak Up and Succeed

5/23/2013

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Get Your Copy at Amazon.com.
In a Nutshell: How to deliver presentations that captivate your audience instead of putting them to sleep.  
Real World: Check out the video of my final class project presentation implementing the techniques covered in the book.

Best Features: Step-by-step instructions with real-world examples.  Technique is as easy as 1,2,3...Great Opening, Streamlined Content, and Great Closing.  

Mood: Mix of motivational speaking + business casual.

Reason for Reading: Required book for my class at UCLA, "New Business Development - Pitching the Perfect Presentation." 

Caution: The Kindle version I purchased was jumbled due to some sort of formatting error.  The author was kind enough to give me a free hardcopy replacement.
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Mini Book Review - Blog Inc.

5/23/2013

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Verdict: Two-Thumbs Up!

In a Nutshell: A fun, practical, fast-paced guide to writing a successful blog.  
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Get Your Copy at Amazon.com.
Best Features: 18 mini-interviews with highly successful bloggers.  Design, graphics, fonts, and paper are very appealing...so much so that I paid more for the paperback version instead of the Kindle edition.  

Mood: I felt creative and inspired after reading it. After cracking it open, I couldn't put it down.  I stayed up 'til 2 AM to finish it in one sitting!

Reason for Reading: Get ideas for GeoPivot, my new e-magazine.

Favorite Quote:
"Back in 2001...blogging gave me visions  of Doogie Howser logging electronic  entries  of his adventures as a teen medical genius."
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Find & Prioritize Potential Grant Foundations

5/13/2013

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4 Steps to Get Started

  1. Access the Foundation Center Database.
  2. Search for foundations by geographic area of focus & fields of interest.
  3. Eliminate foundations based on lack of alignment between your need & their preferences.
  4. Create prioritized list of 5-10 foundations.

Step 1 Outcomes - Find the Place

Finding a location where I could access the Foundation Center online database was much more complicated than I had anticipated.  I ended up driving ~45 minutes from my house to the Non Profit Resource Center in Riverside, California.  
The center itself is housed in an old school building along with several non-profit agencies.  Finding the center involved wandering down eerie, abandoned hallways lined with metal lockers.  Things started to look up once I found the right room.   A nice woman welcomed me and escorted me over to the workstation slated for grant research, where she gave me a quick tutorial on how to use the Foundation Center database.

The most entertaining part of the experience was the ancient computer, reminiscent of the one I used in middle school in the mid-90s.  The version of Internet Explorer was so outdated, Google couldn't open my email and warned me that I needed to "upgade to a modern browser" to gain functionality.

Step 2 Outcomes - 850 Potential Foundations

I stared my search by using two filters - geographic focus and field of interest.  The filters allow you to select from pre-populated lists of states and broad topics like "education."  Unfortunately, there weren't categories for "computers," "high-tech," or "mapping,"  which better describe the project I want to fund.

I found ~ 850 potential foundations using the first set of filters:
  • Cancer + California or International = 158 Foundations 
  • Higher Education + California = 618 Foundations
  • Public Health, Environmental Health, Public Education + California or International = 80 Foundations

I skimmed the vast list of search results and found 24 foundations worth a closer look.  I was able to email detailed reports of these foundations to myself (after I upgraded the browser).  The most interesting foundations I found were the Dr. Seuss Foundation and the Association of American Geographers (AAG), a professional association I'm a member of.    I didn't realize AAG awarded almost a half million dollars in grants in 2011!

Step 3 Outcomes - Select 24 Foundations for Further Screening

I reviewed the Foundation Center reports for 24 foundations, and ranked them based on alignment with subject area, geographic preference, type of financial need, typical dollar range of awards, personal relationships, and past history of giving to my organization.
Using the final set of filters, I created a list of 6 candidate foundations that match the following criteria:
  1. Subject Area: academic research, skin cancer prevention, public education
  2. Geographic Preference: southern California
  3. Financing Type: research projects
  4. Dollar Range: $50 - 200K
  5. Foundation has funded universities in southern California or similar projects in the past.

Step 4 - The Winners Are...

  1. W.M. Keck Foundation: "Concentration is placed on strengthening studies and programs in accredited colleges and universities, medical schools, and major independent medical research institutions in the areas of earth science, engineering, medical research, and to some extent, other sciences, and the liberal arts."
  2. Dornsife Family Foundation: Higher education in California is one of their priorities.  They have also made substantial grants to my organization in the past.
  3. The John Wayne Cancer Foundation: Supports cancer research for the benefit of the general public, with a focus in California.
  4. Margie & Robert E. Petersen Foundation: Giving primarily in California with a focus on 
    cancer research, community/economic development, human services, and medical research.
  5. The Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation: Somewhat broad priorities; although they specifically mention cancer research and education.  They have awarded several previous grants to my organization.
  6. Melanoma Research Alliance Foundation: They have several types of academic awards including Academic-Industry Partnership Awards and Individual Investigator Awards.  One of their areas of focus is cancer prevention (including environmental, epidemiological, and biological factors in melanoma carcinogenesis)

Previous stages of the specific research project I want to fund were provided by the
 National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.  These organizations are also high priorities for potential funding.
* I conducted this research for an assignment in Successful Grant Proposals, a class I'm taking at the University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) - Extension School.
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A Wild Goose Chase in Grant Seeking

5/2/2013

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As promised, I dove back into school today and began the first assignment in my UCLA class, "Successful Grant Proposals."  The goals of the first assignment were to choose a topic and identify several potential funding sources using The Foundation Center website.  

That seemed easy enough.  I already had a topic - modeling global ultra-violet radiation exposure using GIS, courtesy of a colleague at the University of Southern California.  Part 1 - check!
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I figured I'd just jump on The Foundation Center website and enter a few search terms to finish the second part of the assignment.  I used their interactive mapping tool to identify the nearest cooperating center, The Santa Monica Library.  

A few more clicks and I'd be done!  I did a bit of a double-take when I read that you can only access the library's online database in-person unless you pay a subscription fee. 
 I checked several other nearby cooperating centers and found the same result.

Bummer!  It looks like I'm off to the library... just like in middle school.  I wonder if they still have those dusty card catalogs?
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Reboot

5/2/2013

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“Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” 
― Carl Bard
I began my online learning journey in January with the best of intentions.  I would study every day and keep up with all of my classes.  My mind would swirl with new ideas and I'd smile with the satisfaction that comes from investing in myself.  I made some great progress by finishing three classes at Cornell, two at UCLA, and the first few weeks of classes at Harvard and the University of Massachusetts.  And then reality interfered...  

Expedition to Alaska

It started in February with an offer to teach a workshop at a conference in Alaska.  I jumped on the opportunity!  I developed an all day workshop for a group of ~ 20 geospatial professionals about how to communicate technical information effectively.  We played Taboo: geo-style, worked in teams, and challenged ourselves to be great.  The audience loved it...many commented that they had never laughed so much at a workshop.    Who said learning had to be boring???
And then there was the offer to do a mini-trip up to the Arctic Circle afterwards...My adventurous inner explorer couldn't resist.  Flying in a six person cloud hopper to visit the remote village of Beaver was definitely worth the lost class time!  

The village chief invited us into his house and served us caribou meat and wild salmon.  The highlight was holding the pelts of grizzly bear, mink, wolf, and arctic fox he captured.
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I'm the one with the giant grey parka on the right. It took almost an hour to put on the layers and layers of clothes required to fend off the -30 degree F chill factor.

Dream Job Interview

When I returned home, I couldn't wait to catch up in all of my classes...until I saw an email from Coursera that I was selected for an interview for a Course Operations Specialist position!  I was giddy with excitement!  Class would have to wait.  

I needed to prepare for the meeting that could lead to my dream job - contributing to educational resources that could benefit countess students.  I soared past the first interview - a rigorous, a one-hour timed task in which I had to critique a sample course proposal for a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) from a "real" professor and write a best practices guide for translating traditional courses into MOOCs.  
I earned a second interview with a video I created showing how to transform a boring graph into an interactive map using ArcGIS Online.  In the next meeting, I spoke with one of their team members via Skype.  She told me more about the position and I gave her a tour of my online portfolio.  

Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the next round.  I'm proud that I made it that far though.  Who knows how many hundreds or thousands of people applied?

Geo Job Search

Rachel, you really need to catch on your classes!  

However, I couldn't skimp on my geo-job search.  I jumped on the networking opportunities provided by attending the L.A. GeoSpatial Summit and presenting at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting and the CalGIS Conference.  April 16th was particularly interesting as I was invited to speak in two cities on the same day.  Miraculously, I was able to present at two events at CalGIS in Long Beach in the morning and then scurry down to San Diego in time to speak at the World Resources SIM Center that night.

Oh yeah...and there was the design and launch of my new magazine - GeoPivot, creating an interactive map of my speaking engagements (see below), and creating a flippable GIS Portfolio to highlight my skills.

Time Travel

Fast forward to today, where I FINALLY have some free time to dive back into my blog.  Stay tuned for more details as I pick up where I left off on my online learning journey.
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